Unintended Consequences
There is a story of how Isaac Newton’s dog bumped a table which knocked over the candle and burned to the ground a considerable amount of Newton’s life work. After the ashes cooled, Newton sat gently stroking the dog’s ears and saying, "You will never know what you have done." This is exactly what God was saying when he asked Adam and Eve, “where are you,” and when he asked Cain, “what have you done?” He was helping them to consider the weight of unintended consequences to their decisions.
One of the effects of sin is our confusion and blindness to it. We think things aren’t so bad. We can tidy things up again with a snip here and a clip there. We think the situation is still within our management: a damaged relationship with a child, or our growing dependence on a substance to get us through. Especially when it’s microscopic, like permitting anxiety and fear in our personal mental space, or trying to manipulate a situation, or self-soothing with a delicious little fantasy in the mind. We don’t realize that we’re capsized in the ocean and have lost track of how far away from the ship we’ve drifted. We can’t comprehend that the little lie we’ve planted in the earth is already producing three generations of destructive mutant growth.
That is the essence of human lostness. I simply don’t know where I am, and I don’t know what I’ve done, or how much it will cost to get me back. None of us can come back from that on our own. Each of us need a rescuer and support system to save us from our own set of confusions. But it takes humility to own our mistakes and to surrender to the corrective process.
Lost in Confusion
The Apostle Paul informs us:
“You must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, with a continual lust for more.” Ephesians 4:17-19
Notice the unbelieving gentiles have a vague mental awareness of reality: “the futility of their thinking;” “darkened in their understanding;” “ignorance.” Notice, it is the hardening of their hearts that lead to that confusion. The closing off of their lives from godly correction leads to a loss of sensitivity, and living out of debased animal instincts. On the other hand, the believer and follower can ascend the stairway of spiritual transformation by partnering with the Holy Spirit in these habits.
The Pathway Out of Confusion
1. Fill your life with voices of truth.
- Guide me in your truth and teach me… Good and upright is the Lord; therefore he instructs sinners in his ways. He guides the humble in what is right and teaches them his way. Psalm 25:5, 8-9
- For the word of the Lord is right and true. Psalm 33:4
2. Recognize and own your mistakes and sins. This can be one of the hardest steps because it’s the most humiliating to our pride.
- In Romans 7:13 Paul says that God gives us his commandments “in order that sin might be recognized as sin.”
3. Confess your mistakes and sins. Accompanying our confession is often a silent embarrassment that I’ve failed, but a public humility to recognize I need help from others to succeed.
- When anyone becomes aware that they are guilty in any of these matters, they must confess in what way they have sinned. Leviticus 5:5
4. Receive correction for your mistakes and sins. Allow others to help you in your process of maturity. It takes time, practice, new habits, and coaching along the way.
- Those who disregard discipline despise themselves, but the one who heeds correction gains understanding. Proverbs 15:32
5. Walk in the Holy Spirit to avoid the path of destruction. The Spirit of Jesus is perfect leadership. When you fill your life with prayer and worship and the things of the Spirit, you fill your life with his leadership. He will train your feet to avoid sin and live in the power of perfect love.
- So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. Galatians 5:16
We all have areas of life where moral confusion and lies still hang like a haze of smoke around us. The good news is, if we walk in humility, God’s gentle corrections can lead us out of any confusion, and back into his path of sacred order and blessing for our lives.
Tags: truth, wisdom, sin, repent, lost, confusion, transformation, blindness, correction, lies, destruction, lostness
